Challenge and Change

Challenge and Change: History of the Jews in America

General References

Academic Guide to Jewish History
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/jewishhistory/index.cfm
Major print and internet scholarly resources site, produced by Jenny Mendelsohn (Chair), University of Toronto Libraries , electronic information resources(eir). The maintenance of this website is a collaborative effort of representatives from numerous universities in North America. It has an extensive listing of public access sites covering many areas of Jewish history.

American Jewish History

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_jewish_history/index.html

Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
American Jewish History is the official publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, the oldest national ethnic historical organization in the United States. The AJH focuses on every aspect of the American Jewish experience. Check the indexes to their journal on line for listing of articles, which are too numerous to list here. The journal was founded in 1892 as Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society.

America's Library-The Library of Congress
http://www.americaslibrary.gov
This web site is designed to be entertaining and fun to use. The site is designed especially with young people in mind, but there are great stories for people of all ages. Type in the name of someone mentioned in the text book and see what your search results yield.

American Family Immigration History Center
http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/
Located in the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and online, the American Family Immigration History Center (AFIHC) allows visitors to explore the extraordinary collection of immigrant arrival records stored in the Ellis Island Archives.
Searching their archives can help inform your own family's story--inspiring a new sense of your place in the larger story of American immigration.

American Jewish Historical Society's Jewish Museum in Cyberspace
www.amuseum.org
Looking for famous American Jews, take a Virtual Tour through 500 years of Jewish-American history -- from the Jews who helped Columbus to Barbra Streisand - illustrated by medals specially commissioned by the Jewish-American Hall of Fame. Test your Jewish I.Q. by taking quizzes about the personalities, places and events that have been honored by the Jewish-American Hall of Fame -- baseball great Hank Greenberg, violin virtuoso Isaac Stern, composer George Gershwin, Statue of Liberty poet Emma Lazarus, Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, musical genius Leonard Bernstein, humanitarian Elie Wiesel, and many more. Nominate someone for the Jewish-American Hall of Fame.

Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp
The Avalon Project mounts digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. This site is an excellent source for State Charters and hundreds of other State and Federal documents.

Bureau of Jewish Education of New York (Educational Resource Centers)
www.bjeny.org/350years.asp
The Educational Resource Centers of BJENY have compiled resources and ideas for you to download and use in your celebration of 350 Years of American Jewry. The site offers document-based questions, suggested literature, videos, trip and bulletin board ideas, and other links.

Celebrate 350: Jewish Life in America 1654-2004
http://www.350th.org

350 Years of American Jewish History is a collaborative project involving The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, The American Jewish Historical Society, The Library of Congress, and the National Archives & Records Administration. This site exists to generate and support activities that will advance the understanding of the American Jewish Experience as it marks this significant anniversary. To learn more, read: "New Amsterdam, 1654 -1664" by Jacob Rader Marcus; "The Exodus from Brazil and the Arrival in New Amsterdam of the Jewish Pilgrim Fathers in 1654" by Arnold Wiznitzer; Timeline of American Jewish History; Bibliography; This month in American Jewish History.

The Handbook of Texas Online
http://www.tshaonline.org
The Handbook of Texas Online is a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at UT Austin. Search for "Jews" and read over 90 articles about the Jews in Texas or people involved with the Jews of Texas.

From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome

"From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America" is a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America. The exhibition features more than two hundred treasures of American Judaica from the collections of the Library of Congress, augmented by a selection of important loans from other cooperating cultural institutions.

Haven to Home: An American Journey

http://loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3712

A webcast performance which tells the stories of Emma Lazarus, an immigrant's daughter who became known as Lady Liberty's poet, and Irving Berlin, an immigrant who became one of America's best loved composers. The original play, commissioned by the Hebraic Section and written and directed by Roberta Gasbarre, Director of The Discovery Theater, Smithsonian Associates, explores how the values of liberty, opportunity, and religious freedom shaped American history. The 45 minute presentation was one of the public programs related to the Library of Congress exhibition, "From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America." Launch in a new window. Requires RealPlayer: Get RealPlayer - Free.

Hebrew Dictionary Online

http://www.dictionary.co.il/
English-Hebrew dictionary according to topics.

Index of Electronic Resources for Judaic Studies (University of Pennsylvania).
http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/jsr_ix.html
Supporting the unique advanced research and publications program of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is a remarkable library that was largely inherited from Dropsie College. It houses more than 180,000 monographic volumes and over 1,000 current and non-current journal titles. Click "E-Resources" and search for online sites on American Jewry. Unfortunately, the library is accessible only to UPenn staff and students.

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies - IAJGS

http://iajgs.org/index.html

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies-IAJGS- is an independent non-profit umbrella organization coordinating the activities and annual conference of more than 75 national and local Jewish genealogical societies around the world. Virtually all of the local and national Jewish Genealogical Societies (JGS's), and a number of Jewish Genealogical Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are members. Click here for a complete list of member organizations.

Internet Modern History Sourcebook
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
This excellent site focuses on providing access to full-text primary historical documents, as well as providing links to pictures and secondary articles, reviews and discussions, and to meta sites of web resources and websites focused on specific issues. The contents, listed by topic, are divided into four historical periods: The People of Israel; The Emergence of Judaism; The Jewish Middle Ages; and Jewish Life Since the Enlightenment. Many of the online texts are "public domain historical texts translated more than 75 years ago". Although these texts are often still used "in commercially available sourcebooks...note that...in some cases...more modern translations", available only in print, may be preferred. The Jewish History page is a subset of texts derived from the three major online History Sourcebooks - Ancient, Medieval and Modern with some additions. The site is maintained and edited by Paul Halsall, Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Florida.

Jewish American Heritage Month website

http://www.jewishheritage.gov/index.html

In an effort to recognize the more than 350-year history of Jewish contributions to American culture, May was proclaimed Jewish American Heritage Month. To help celebrate, this website was created by a collaboration of various government entities, including the Library of Congress, the National Park Service, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. There are a wide array of topics covered on the site, including the following that are featured on the homepage: the work of Jewish artists and craftsmen from North Africa, films and lectures during the month of May, recordings of Jewish songs, the role of Jewish parachutists in World War II, and Jewish veterans from World War II. On the left side of the page is a menu that includes "Stories", "Exhibitions and Collections", and "Images Used on This Site". The latter link allows visitors to read the bibliographic information of the images used on the site, as well as view the images more closely, in a bigger format. In addition, interested visitors can find events celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month on the right hand side of the page.

Jewish Community Newspapers - Listing of various Jewish newspapers in the United States. Read the current headlines online as well as access the archives of these newspapers. If you would like to add your local Jewish newspaper to our listing, please email the webmaster.

The Jewish Encyclopedia
www.jewishencyclopedia.com
This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations. This online version contains the unedited contents of the original encyclopedia. Since the original work was completed almost 100 years ago, it does not cover a significant portion of modern Jewish History (e.g., the creation of the State of Israel, the Holocaust, etc.). However, it does contain an incredible amount of information that is remarkably relevant today.

Jewish Orphanages in the United States

http://www.kesh.com/hnoh/USJORPH6A.html#TOP

This site contains a listing of Jewish Orphanages by state, city and earliest dates founded, as well as histories and information for accessing records. Many cities in the United States had Jewish Orphanages. This site attempts to locate as many as possible and to make this information easily accessible.

Judaica Collection at Yale University Library.
http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/
This site is similar to the U of Penn and Princeton sites listed above. Click the following links for more information and research Selected Internet Resources - general / Bibliographic Databases ; Research Guides - guide to English-language material at Yale / Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory / Judaica Journals Online

JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Genealogy
An Affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

http://www.jewishgen.org
JewishGen Inc. is the primary internet source connecting researchers of Jewish genealogy worldwide. Its most popular components are the JewishGen Discussion Group, the JewishGen Family Finder (a database of 300,000 surnames and towns), the comprehensive directory of InfoFiles, ShtetLinks for over 200 communities, and a variety of databases such as the ShtetlSeeker and Jewish Records Indexing-Poland. JewishGen's online Family Tree of the Jewish People contains data on over two million people. Created to assist those researching their Jewish ancestry and based on the concept of free sharing of information, JewishGen Inc. is staffed primarily by volunteers. To learn more about what JewishGen offers anyone researching Jewish ancestry, please feel free to explore each of the links on the website.

Jewish History (BUBL LINK / 5:15).
http://bubl.ac.uk/link/j/jewishhistory.htm
BUBL identifies major resources on the Internet. "All items are selected, evaluated...and described. Links are checked and fixed each month....The aim is to guarantee at least 5 relevant resources for every subject included, and a maximum of 15 resources." BUBL provides a useful academic quality check for individual sites (much as recognized publishers do for books). See Judaica Libraries and Archives on the web. Links to Jewish-History.com, Jewish Virtual Library and other web sites.

Jewish History Resource Center (Dinur Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

http://www.dinur.org/main/
A superb site offering a wide range of carefully selected and vetted information. In the Periods and Topics section - encyclopedia and research articles, primary documents, websites and bibliographies are arranged as follows: Archaeology (arranged by site), Biblical History, Second Temple and Talmudic Era, Middle Ages, Holocaust, Zionism, Israel, American Jewish History, Women's Studies and Timelines. In addition, there is a section on Bibliographies and a section of primary Documents and Texts both arranged by broad period. There are also lists of journals and maps and atlases. The site also provides lists of libraries, archives, museums, publishers, research centers and historical societies, newsgroups, conferences, grants and fellowships, academic programs and professors of Jewish History.

The Library of Congress
www.loc.gov
The Library of Congress web site. Search a wide variety of topics and exhibitions by typing in a key word in the search box on the top right hand side of the home page. Click on "THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet". Acting under the directive of the leadership of the 104th Congress to make Federal legislative information freely available to the Internet public, a Library of Congress team brought the THOMAS World Wide Web system online in January 1995, at the inception of the 104th Congress. Search for any legislation that has been or is before the House or Senate of the United States.

MavenSearch
http://www.maven.co.il/
Founded in 1994, MavenSearch is a leading directory and search engine for Jewish content related websites. MavenSearch enables users to quickly find websites by either browsing through over 250 related subject categories or searching using a unique engine which can deal with the different phonetic spelling variations of Hebrew words and phrases. MavenSearch currently lists over 15,000 websites with many new sites being added each week.

National Public Radio
www.npr.org
NPR is an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming. A privately supported, not-for-profit, membership organization, NPR serves more than 750 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations. http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/mar/southernjews/

Specifically, check out this article with an accompanied audio report on 300 Years of Jews in South Carolina. Then search for other topics in American Jewish history.

North American Jewish Data Bank

http://www.jewishdatabank.org

The North American Jewish Data Bank is the central repository of social scientific studies of North American Jewry. The Data Bank’s primary functions are to (1) acquire, archive, and disseminate quantitative data sets and reports, both contemporary and historical, and (2) encourage utilization of the archive through training and provide information about methods for studying Jewish communities. Their goal is to aid understanding of the Jewish community, and to improve the quality and utilization of research conducted about North American Jewry.

The Data Bank holds the National Jewish Population Surveys of 1971, 1990 and 2000-01, over 90 local Jewish community studies, and are working to acquire other surveys of American Jews. The Data Bank is the sole distributor of the NJPS 2000-01 data set and has a large collection of related material.
The North American Jewish Data Bank is a collaborative project of United Jewish Communities, the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

A One-Step Portal for On-Line Genealogy by Stephen P. Morse

http://stevemorse.org/onestep/onestep.htm

A specialist in unique and powerful search engines, many specifically designed for Jewish genealogists. Includes a better search engine for the Ellis Island records, as well as search engines to find ship photos. Has improved search engines for various census records. Includes English-searchable Israeli telephone directory.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

http://pjn.library.cmu.edu

Composed of The Jewish Criterion (1895-1962), The American Jewish Outlook (1934-1962), and The Jewish Chronicle (1962-Present). This project serves as both an online reference source and as a digitized historical documentation of the Jewish community of Pittsburgh and its outlying areas.

The Public Broadcasting Service
www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/about.html
Public Broadcasting Service site of Heritage: Civilization of the Jews, contains parts of all 8 episodes of this series. The later episodes focus on American Jewish History. This site offers written, as well as audio and video presentations.

RAMBI:The Index of Articles in Jewish Studies

http://aleph1.libnet.ad.il
The Index of Articles in Jewish Studies is produced by the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. Subjects in RAMBI are in the script of the article (English or Hebrew) and therefore to find materials by subject in both it is often necessary to search twice. Searching by Section retrieves all records, regardless of language and script. Special features in the WWW implementation of RAMBI include: links from journal articles to the title index of the Israel Union List of Serials (ULS); implementation of the Hebrew "virtual keyboard" for searchers abroad who do not have Israeli Windows; special routines to allow use of both Hebrew "visual" and "logical" fonts. For further information on these and other features of RAMBI, click on the "RAMBI Help" link at the top of the RAMBI search screens.

Shetetlinks
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/
SHTETL (Shteh'-t'l) n. (Yiddish) (pl. shtetlach ) Little city, town, or village. Often used to refer to the small Jewish communities of eastern Europe where the culture of the Ashkenazim flourished before World War II. ShtetLinks is a project of JewishGen, Inc., which aims to provide a place where anyone with an interest in a place where Jews have lived, to commemorate that place. This is accomplished by creating an individual web page for that place with information, pictures, databases, and links to sites that provide additional information on that place. ShtetLinks is not confined to Ashkenazim (descendants of eastern European Jews); this site is open to Sephardim (descendants of Jews from Spain and Portugal), Mizrachim (Jews from Asia) and Jews from other places, as well. Click Americas section for more information on selected cities in the United States.

SocialAction.com

http://www.socialaction.com/index.phtml

SocialAction.com is published by Jewish Family & Life!. Launched in November 1999, their mission includes these goals: provide a central on-line Jewish address for service, social action, activism and justice work; publish original and reprinted articles that connect Jews with Jewish tradition and voices; connect readers to countless other Jewish and social action/social justice projects and organizations; speak across the religious and cultural spectrum to Jews looking for opportunities to do socially engaged work; strengthen their Jewish involvement and build community, provide multiple thresholds, involving Jews in working for social justice, socially-conscious giving, volunteering, advocacy, social change, and acts of hesed (caring) through both one-time and ongoing; nurture and network the growing community of Jewish; partner with other religious organizations working for social change and social justice;, stimulate and support social action as an expression of Jewish identity and as an integral part of Jewish communities and organizations; provoke serious Jewish conversations about tzedakah (literally, "giving what is just") and philanthropy; house an interactive, on-line "greenhouse" for initiatives and ideas; build a continually expanding Jewish resource bank for educators, congregations and other organizations, activists and volunteers.

Southern Poverty Law Center

http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp

The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in 1971 as a small civil rights law firm. Today, the Center is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups. Located in Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, the Center was founded by Morris Dees and Joe Levin, two local lawyers who shared a commitment to racial equality. Its first president was civil rights activist Julian Bond.

Tolerance.org

http://www.tolerance.org/index.jsp

Tolerance.org is a principal online destination for people interested in dismantling bigotry and creating, in hate's stead, communities that value diversity. (Read more about how we define "tolerance.") If you want to know how to transform yourself, your home, your school, your workplace or your community, Tolerance.org is a place to start, and continue, the journey. Through its online well of resources and ideas, its expanding collection of print materials, its burgeoning outreach efforts, and its downloadable public service announcements, Tolerance.org promotes and supports anti-bias activism in every venue of life.

Varieties of Orthodox Judaism

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/363_Transp/08_Orthodoxy.html

This site was developed by Prof. E. Segal, Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary.

To learn more about the major groupings of Orthodoxy, from its inception until the present day, click on one of the following:

Welcome to Displaced Persons' Camps

http://www.dpcamps.org/dpcamps/

This site offers a wealth of information about many of the DP camps.

Yiddish Dictionary Online

http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/

English-Yiddish-English dictionary.

ˆTop

This web site is funded through a grant from the Covenant Foundation.
Copyright 2004 Feinstein Center for American Jewish History